Car makers are known for coming up with odd special editions of vehicles, from the Bill Blass Lincoln Continentals and Levis AMC Gremlins (with jeans-style upholstery) of the 1970s to the Frank Sinatra Chrysler Imperial of the early 1980s and the 1990s Orvis Edition Jeep Grand Cherokees.

Today Volkswagen brings us the Beetle Fender Edition, with dashboard trim that mimics the sunburst pattern on many Fender guitars like the Stratocaster.

For car collectors the words “spring” and “Carlisle” conjure dreams of a pilgrimage to sacred ground — or the annual trek to the spring car show and swap meet in Carlisle, Pa.

This year’s event takes place the last weekend in April and includes a sale of muscle cars, hotrods and classic vehicles by Auctions America, a unit of RM Auctions. While plenty of Ford Mustangs, Chevrolet Camaros and other 1960s favorites will cross the block, there are also some 1970s gems that many of us thought would naver become collectible.

Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln luxury brand has a tough task on its hands. It wants to win over a new class of customers — wealthier, younger and better educated than its current clientele. At the same time, Lincoln can’t afford to alienate any loyal long-time buyers.

Lincoln will use this week’s New York auto show, traditionally a showcase for luxury marques, to take another step in what company executives call a “journey.” On display will be the production version of the redesigned MKZ midsize sedan, and a restyled and more technologically advanced edition of the larger MKS sedan.

Ford Motor Co. provided its dealers with a more refined vision of how it wants Lincoln dealerships to look following a program of renovations and other upgrades. The car maker showed the new look during this weekend’s National Automobile Dealers Association meeting in Las Vegas.

Ford has been at odds with Lincoln dealers for more than 18 months as Ford has attempted to push for multi-million upgrade investments. Ford has said the dealerships need makeovers as part of a broad plan to promote the Lincoln luxury brand

Dealers say they need better vehicles before they make the big investments.

Lincoln helped define the high-end car business from the 1930s through the 1970s. Since then, though, its cars have set few if any marks for performance, styling, technology or sales. Now Ford Motor Co.’s luxury division says it plans to reclaim its spot as a leading brand instead of an also-ran.

To do so it is in part recalling some of its classic designs, from the revolutionary 1941 Continental to the 1969 Mark III, a sleek two-door that helped define the “personal car” segment.

The ramping up of marketing efforts at Lincoln marks the brand’s 90th anniversary and reflects Ford’s plans to move back into premium vehicle segments.

Ford Motor Co. unveiled a sleek new midsize car for its Lincoln luxury-car division this week, the first of a handful of new vehicles designed to pump up the ailing brand over the next few years.

The long-term future of Lincoln, however, remains unclear, according to people familiar with the matter, including Lincoln dealers who were briefed by Ford this week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

If the new models don’t appreciably expand Lincoln’s sales over the next several years, “Ford has a strategic decision to make” on whether to continue operating Lincoln as a full-fledged brand, said one of those people familiar with the situation.

To some Western observers the funeral procession for the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il may have looked a bit like a product placement for Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln luxury-car division — circa 1975.

Some of the imposing black cars taking part in the funeral parade looked like they could have been extras in episodes of the original Hawaii Five-O or Barnaby Jones, two hit 1970s shows for which Ford supplied vehicles.

Cadillac is showing a new four-door convertible concept car called the Ciel. The car maker says the new car is indicative of how its future designs will look, and that it pushes “the brand’s Art & Science philosophy into a new stratum.” Art & Science brought us the CTS sport sedan and other current, angular Cadillac models.

But in some ways the car’s styling recalls past vehicles, from the company’s Evoq roadster concept of a dozen years ago and rival Lincoln’s convertible Continental of the early 1960s. The Ciel’s long, low-slung body, rear-hinged doors and taillights that suggest tail fins remind me of big American cars of 50 or 60 years ago.

The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance features some of the rarest and finest vintage cars in the world on the 18th hole of the golf course behind The Lodge at Pebble Beach, you might imagine that they were found at one of the leading international auctions, an exclusive collector car dealer or simply passed down from one generation to another.

In most cases you would be right- but this year’s Concours includes a car found on Craigslist. No, they haven’t made a class for 1982 Toyota Camrys. The car is a 1931

Lincoln Model K Willoughby Panel Brougham owned by Steve Snyder of Orange, Calif., and it will be displayed in the Pre-War Preservation Class.

Ford is recalling 1.1 million older pickup trucks because corrosion can cause the straps holding their gas tanks to fail, potentially allowing the tank to drag underneath the truck or fall off completely.

In documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the car maker said the recall affects certain F-150 trucks from the 1997 through 2003 model years, F-150 Heritage models from the 2004 model year, F-250 models from 1997 through 1999, and Lincoln Blackwood vehicles from 2002 and 2003.

The vehicle were built from June 20, 1995 through Aug. 4, 2004 and sold or registered in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.